Anchor
by Soulreciever
Summary: Emma questions Moe French and gets some unexpected answers. spoilers up to Skin Deep, semi AU, potential Rumbelle
1. Resolve

1. Resolve.

It was blind stubbornness, she knew that, knew also that it really wasn't likely to get her anywhere with this.

The 'but' lurking at the end of that was why she was here at the door to Moe French's suspiciously private hospital room.

Somehow there's a large check from Gold somewhere at the end of this and that's only going to serve to make everything even more difficult.

Still she has to try.

So deep breath and through the door into the proverbial 'lion's den'...though, truthfully, that'd be the pawn shop, wouldn't it?

Moe French is covered still in bandages, grazes and a myriad of rainbow hued bruises.

He's also, the very moment he sees her, a man very much on edge. A man very, very, aware of the power, the danger, contained in the knowledge he held.

"Oh, Sheriff Swan...I didn't think I'd see you again."  
"I just wanted to see how you were doing Mr French."  
"You also want me to reconsider, right?" The note of fear is unmistakable and, really, she can't blame him for all he's been through these last few days.

Still it's all the more reason to want to forge on, motivation for the shear strength of stubbornness that is as her heart, her soul, rather than the stumbling block she knows the other had hoped it.

"I've cause enough to push for a trial even without your help, Mr French, but it would certainly make the whole matter simpler. Insure he gets the conviction he deserves rather than simply walking away again."

A look that tells what she already knows so very well, that he fears Gold more than he'll ever respect her or the justice she's serving and it's all she needs to change tact.

To ask, as off hand and casual as she can manage, "Who was the woman he mentioned?"

"No one."

Far too fast, far too evasive and really she's not even certain she'd need her 'power' to see that it's a lie.

Still there's something else there, something that has her shrugging down to the thinnest of layers despite the chill in the air, tossing the shed clothes out into the hall and then shutting the door.

"Tell me the truth," followed by, "I give my word it won't leave this room," and he looks at her, really looks for what seems forever before he responds with.  
"My daughter. Alayna." The hitch in his voice as he states the name, the shadow in his eyes tells it's a long, hard, story but it's a little too late to back out now.

Her curiosity's been caught, after all.

"Tell me about her."  
"Ah...she was headstrong, brave, kind and beautiful...oh so beautiful. She looked after the libary, had a a natural gift that meant she could find the perfect book for you. The book you needed to read rather than wanted to.  
"Everything always had some magical edge to it, every mundane thing special in it's own right, in her world. Dreamer eyes her mother passed down before the cancer rotted that optimism from her.  
"Which has why, when it got back to me that she's been seen out and about with Gold, flurting and laughing and blushing, it was all too believable.  
"Not to say I wasn't concerned, god I was half out my mind, but arguing with my girl once she had an idea in her head was..." an open handed gesture that his him wincing then, "so I let her be, convinced myself she'd wake up eventually and realise there was no changing a man like that. It was the wrong choice."  
"What happened?"  
"You've seen the library, that's what happened. You see she got too stubborn, pushed too fast too soon and Gold pushed back. Love was weakness, after all and he loved his power, his reputation, a little more than he loved my girl.  
"It broke her, completely and utterly, had her setting the fire that destroyed the place she'd once loved so very much.  
"Regina got her out before she could destroy herself also...convinced me to let her deal with Ala and carry on as though that blaze really had taken her from me.  
"What sort of reputation would I get if everyone realised what she'd done, after all. Started thinking that maybe there was madness burned deep into my genetic coding? And I listened because it was what I'd needed to hear. Because I too valued reputation, power, above her life."

There is an understanding blooming in her mind, a certain sort of comprehension that settles ice in her blood and prompts her to enquire,  
"He doesn't know, does he?"  
"No."  
"Where is she?" Because the knowledge would give her an edge, or, more importantly, the confidence such knowledge would give her.

A moment, like as he conciders the why of it all, debates again if he's willing to bargin with the safety of his one true treasure and then,  
"You know what it is to let your child go because that's what's best for them, I'd see the hurt of that in your eyes even without knowing your past. So I know you'll understand when I tell you that I don't know...that it was better for me not to know..."

The look in his eyes tells he needs that understanding, needs someone to be able to see his actions with even the smallest sliver of sympathy.

So she smiles, thanks him for his time and then let's him be, allows him his silence because, really, he's suffered more than enough.

She's one foot out the door when he calls her back, pushes a square of firm something into her hands and states,  
"Tell her I'm sorry...that at least somewhere at the start I meant well."

She waits until she's settled in her room at Mary Margret's...until she's safe...before she looks at what she's been gifted.

It's a studio shoot of a truly beautiful woman with dark hair and laughing eyes of a stunningly sharp sapphire hue. On the back is printed 'see I can sit still sometimes. _Ala xx'_ and a random date from two years previous.

It's more than simply giving her a face to search for, to recognise, it's a silent request to find her, save her as best she can.

A somewhat impossible task if the girl's as lost as her father's made her sound and yet impossible really does seem to becoming fast her 'thing'.


	2. Revilation

. 

She's still sat with the photo balanced on her ankles, mind drifting desperate some form of path or bright spark of information when Mary returns.

That it's late again, that she's all too certain where her friend has been, distracts her long enough that it's only when the other states "Maybe brining your work back with you isn't the best idea, Emma," that she's brought back to 'matters in hand'

Pride would normally have her laughing it all off, sliding the picture somewhere with ease of access. Pride would also have had her in this same position tomorrow morning, running simply for the grace of Granny's amazing coffee and still entirely without path.

She tells herself it's that which motivates her to wave the other woman over rather than how...wrong...it feels to lie to her even about something this small or simply for omissions sake.

"This is a little different."

Which would be Mary's cue to question why and yet she's captivated by the photo, taking it up in her hands and staring at it as though it's something precious.

Envy, bitter, hot and so very irrational given that they are only friends...that she shouldn't be wishing that look directed at her as though she's still babe in arms and Mary truly her mother.

It's the very first time that the idea has settled so very hard in her head, that she's seen her son's words as little more than the creation an over active imagination.

The first she has truly wished it so.

For an instant she's caught in headiness of it all and then reality at last settles back in, has her asking,

"You know her then?"

A moment more that odd, odd, expression and then Mary's face is crinkling into confusion, "No."

"But?"

"I feel as though I should...a little like when I met you the first time and yet..." her hands shape empty air a moment before she enquires, "Who is she?"

"Moe French's daughter and the reason I'm currently entertaining a certain eminent business man."

The briefest second more of that slack, confused expression then, "She died in the library arson didn't she?" in a strange, far away, voice.

As though she's reading unfamiliar lines some written script rather than genuinely recalling a memory.

It's another uncomfortable oddity and again she's brushing aside, gripping hard to the things that don't have her feeling as though she's tearing apart a little at the seams.

"Apparently that's what her father wanted people to think and now he's guilt tripping hard."

Understanding and rather than asking the slew of questions she knows the other woman has she simply says,

"Then we talk to Dr. Hopper tomorrow and see if he can help at all."

It's wonderfully logical and painfully simple now it's been given voice, how else had they been able to diagonal a mental break if they'd not used a professional, after all?

"You know sometimes I think Regina's right about how ill-suited I am to this job."

"Because you got so close to a problem that you missed something?" Her usual comforting smile then, "Emma, you know as well as I do that that's how the mind works sometimes…that there's no shame in needing a fresh set of eyes every now and again."

A smile in kind as much thanks as she can manage about the strange, strange, feeling that's settled itself onto the evening and then Mary's handing back the photo, moving off to mix hot chocolate and thus begin the usual ritual their evenings together.

They come into the heart of one of Henry's 'therapy' sessions without even meaning to, though the look on Dr. Hopper's face tells that he little believes their assertions as such.

Not that it really matters when her son's face is lit up with an expression that says she's all he'll ever need to keep him truly happy.

Mary offers to come back later once the accusations and the arguing have died a little and sighing, Dr. Hopper responds with,

"You might as well stay now that you're here," leaving hovering, unspoken, the fact that this is because he feels he'll get nothing more out of Henry now that he's been distracted by finding out just why they're here.

By the thought of getting to the heart of yet another mystery.

It's another reminder of how alike she and her son are and, smiling despite herself for the warmth the thought gives her, she enquires,

"What can you tell us about this girl?" As she wrestles the picture from her pocket and passes it into Dr. Hopper's care.

For a moment the Dr's face is blank and then, brows furrowing, he responds, "I saw her for a few sessions but I couldn't give her the help she needed so I recommended she was sent somewhere else," with the same, slack, tone that Mary had used the night previous.

Still a lead is a lead and so she enquires, "Can you remember where she ended out Dr. Hopper?"

"Riverview I think…though it might have been Spring Harbor…give me a minute and I'll see if I can find the paperwork."

Henry catches her eye as the Dr. begins pulling files, almost at random, from the cabinet and taps the space at his side.

She takes the offer and, as expected, is instantly met with a whispered, "She won't have gone anywhere."

"Because 'bad things happen to people who try to leave'? Sorry, kid, but even you've got to admit that being locked up in a mental institute away from everyone you've ever known and loved is pretty bad."

"That's not how it works,"

"Ok, I'll bite, what do you think happened?"

"Dr. Hopper could I see that photo?"

The Dr. pauses mid search and, brow furrowed, he fixes his eyes first on Mary and then on her before pulling a few files free the cabinet and settling in a the boy's other side.

A beat, then he's passing the photo into Henry's care and they all watch, in silence, as the kid pulls free his story book and begins rifling through…begins searching for comparisons.

Four minutes later a small noise of victory and, placing the thing, face up, onto the table he states,

"It's because of who she is."


	3. Rejection

. 

"It's because of who she is!"

There, spread across two pages is an illustration of a beautiful young woman in a simple blue gown curtsying low to a man who was not quite a man.

The woman could easily be the twin of she in the photo and the...beast...

"Oh, he looks like Mr. Gold...strange that I'd not noticed before." Mary remarks, her face and voice pure, unadulterated, intrigue.

"That's because she didn't want you seeing." Henry seems particularly pleased at this and, suspicion caught, she enquires,

"What are you pushing at kid?"

"That's Rumpelstiltskin."

Fairy stories have never really been her thing and, yet, somewhere in the back of her head is a fuzzy sort of recollection that prompts her to enquire,

"The guy with the golden straw, right?"

"Mm, but he's also why almost every one even had a story...the one who was actually behind the curse and I thought that was why I couldn't find him."

"Ah because all magic has a price?" which is Dr. Hopper humouring him again and yet this time she can't really blame him because there really does seem some crazy logic to everything Henry is saying.

"Right but if he is Mr Gold, if his price was something other than his life, then this really can still all be saved by true love," with which he's flipping through to an image of the pair caught in a kiss, the skin of the creature now almost human about the lips, "She almost broke his curse once before, after all."

He's all but vibrating with excitement now and though she knows it utterly the wrong thing to do she enquires,

"Almost?"

"It's probably quicker if you read the end for yourself." With which the book is again being thrust into her possession.

Even so very obviously at the end of some long, complicated, tale, she finds herself dragged in by the writing, finds herself coming to not only pity but understand Rumpelstiltskin.

For only someone very damaged would push away the chance of true love…would place dark, corruptive, power above that pure and seemingly incorruptible thing.

Actually, thinking about it, it's a little unnerving how the end of the books strange interpretation of the story of Beauty and her Beast mirrors the last known events of Alayna's life.

Right down to her one lover believing her dead and gone from the world.

She's staring at a picture of a broken, broken man cradling a chipped cup as though it's his last lifeline in the world and the world is fading away

…tunnelling about her until she's utterly certain she's going to faint…

…then…

"Ah, here she is!" Dr Hopper states as he waves the offending file about his head triumphantly, "In amongst the Jane Does as expected but details are important and well you don't see eyes like hers too often…anyway it says here she went to Riverview…"

"But?"

"It's considered professional courtesy to send out a letter to a patient's psychiatrists once they've been hospitalised. Let them know the transfer went smoothly and everything's as well as it can be in the circumstances."

"There's no such letter in Alayna's file is there."

"No…which really doesn't make much sense…give me a minute will you?" With which the Dr is up on his feet, snatching up his phone and folding a little into himself as he conducts a hushed, one sided, conversation.

Eventually he slumps back onto the chair, face drawn in confusion and an edge of fear that she recognises well from before the accident in the mines.

"She's not there…indeed she was never sent there…apparently I sent a letter a few days after my initial enquiry informing them that I'd decided she was better staying here in Storybrooke. I'd sent them the profile of a girl who needed the daily attention that only an institute could give and so, naturally, I asked why they'd not taken the correct, moral, response and queried such a seemingly illogical jump.

"At which point they told me that if I really was Dr Hopper as I claimed then I'd know that Storybrooke had had a highly acclaimed institute for the last ten years, that I was a degenerate excuse for a human being and then hung up on me."

She knows simply by Mary's reaction to the information that it's nothing more than elaborate fabrication, that Storybrooke has never been home to a mental institution reputable or no and suddenly everything's tunnelling in again.

Because there's no way that someone like Regina (and of course it's her because who else in Storybrooke is powerful enough to create such a complicated lie and make it utterly believable?) is going to such lengths for one person unless they're either dangerous, powerful or both and Alayna, beautiful, daydreaming, Alayna really doesn't slot into either role so very well.

Still to believe that she's some pawn in a power play between Rumpelstiltskin and the Evil Queen…

"I need some air." With which she's up on her feet, out of the room and half way down the street before any of them can likely even register that she's spoken.

She's in no way surprised when she finds herself in the station, lurking but two steps from the cell that Gold's currently occupying, Alayna's photo clutched tight in one hand.

"Miss Swan, what an unexpected surprise." He sounds, as ever, amused, intrigued and not in the least surprised and, as ever, her blood heats at the sight of it.

Still at last she's got the advantage and, striding purposely forward, she states, "I want to talk about Alayna French," thrusting the picture forward as she goes.

He looks a moment at the picture, eyes and posture closed, then, "Then you'd best be talking to her father."

She doesn't miss the slight change in his voice, little more than the faintest of wobbles and yet it is enough, a chink in the armour she'd long thought utterly impervious.

For the briefest moment her mind fills with the image of that broken beast and his chipped cup and, before she can quite catch herself, she's informing him,

"She's alive."

She doesn't know what she had expected only that when he simply tightens a little into himself she feels disappointed, as though she had lit some monstrous firework only to be greeted the smallest of reactions.

A whimper rather than an earth shattering bang.

"I have no want to see her, Miss Swan, indeed you can consider keeping her out of sight payment of your dept."

"What! But that's idiotic! You love her for god's sake."

"I think you'll find that's none of your business, Miss Swan and now, if you'll excuse me, I've had a somewhat trying few days." With which he's folding himself up and onto the bed.

She stares at his back for a long while after, the rage in her deeper and truer than any she has experienced since the night she'd lost Graham.

Then, from deep in the heart that white hot indignation the sure and certain thought of _I'm going to find her and I'm going to make him apologise for screwing her life up so very royally. _


	4. Reflection

4. Reflection

In all honesty her mind is not really with her those first few hours after her entirely lack lustre conversation with Gold.

No, it was lost in a long ago time when her heart had been whole and happily ever after had seemed so very, very, possible.

A time she'd thought long since forgotten.

Rationally she knows finding Alayna, somehow making sure this woman who seems, in many aspects, as the person she had been during that time the retribution she's never known, will do little to heal this wound now that it's again open and yet...

Eventually the shear volume of the task ahead of her acts as a ground and she focuses, works her way through streams and streams of paperwork until, at last, she finds the smallest of discrepancies.

It's not much, but, given how cleaver Regina is, how sharp and snakelike her mind, it's practically a neon sign declaring 'she's here.'

Still being that the discrepancy is that there's one member more on the hospital's staff role than they actually pay there's no way she can go in guns blazing.

Not when it could still so very easily be little more than a clerical error given consistency simply for lack of challenge or query.

No, softly, softly is the best way forward right now and so she takes Mary to one side and asks, gently, if the other woman might consider popping in on her old friends at the hospital for a little chat.

She agrees faster than should make sense given how mousy she seems always and yet…something in the bravery of the action, in the way her eyes light with the thrill of 'the chase' as she secures a wire tap under her shirt, sits very well indeed.

Makes her seem more 'herself'.

Just under an hour later she's all but running into the office, bright, bright, smile on her face and a CD chocked with CCTV footage clenched tight in her hands.

The footage proves a montage of the same woman, dressed in an somewhat glamorous take on the Storybrooke hospital uniform, strolling through the hospital's fire escape as though she's simply taking the lift or some other every day action.

"The story is that she suffered a mental break after a patient died and they had to let her go. She kept coming back though; even after they closed her old ward thanks to 'budget restrictions."

"Right and she was never directly stopped or reported because…?"

"Regina told them she'd talked to Archie about the matter and he'd said it was better to let her keep the fiction as she was doing no direct harm."

"Which they never questioned because there's only one person who'd even dare to so actively doubt Regina and, apparently, he couldn't care less about this entire situation."

"That makes you angry, but why?" sudden understanding then terrible, terrible, pity as she asks, "Henry's father?"

"I know it's wrong to be drawing parallels right now, to be loosing my head to something so stupid when there's someone out there who needs me strong.

"But he loves her, he really loves her and he's tossing that aside because he thinks it makes him week…because he's too much of a coward to take even the smallest risk."

"Talk to me."

Oh but how easy it would be to be a coward herself, to sweep it all again under metaphorical carpet and claim herself better.

It's not the right choice, of course, not for herself, for Alayna and most certainly not for Henry and so she finds her strength, her centre and begins.

O_nce upon a time there was a woman who was only just a woman._

_A woman who had had to fight and claw for every scrap of life and yet still dreamed young girl dreams because it was an escape._

_Because it was nicer to believe still that one day her prince would come, that one day she would live happily ever after, than what she knew as a woman._

_That the world was hard and cold and there was no happily ever after._

_So when, working split shifts at a five and dime dinner, he walks into her life, it's easy to believe it fate._

_Easy to start trading her secrets as though she's known him his whole life and easier still to fall._

_Still he seems to fall just as hard and so when she learns of the life growing inside of her she does not think to lie or even of giving the child away._

_Instead she drives them up to the dinner near where she'd been found and asked for an old truth._

_It is a game between them, one built of the simple joy he finds always in making deals and their shared need to make light the hard truths tangled in the story of their lives before one another._

_Truth for a truth, new for new, old for old and, in circumstances such as this, a request for old to ease the way for the new._

_The knowledge of the life inside her comes, she knows, with high price and so she asks, at last, for the truth his birth name._

_He'd blushed so sweetly as he'd gifted her the truth, the worry on his brow as he'd tried to guess the truth at the end of such a trade making her tease him for the fact. _

_Making her name him child no matter his seven years of extra life and have him smiling again before gifting him her own old truth._

_Nothing so very hard to hear, simply that she had no parents and this dinner as much the place she'd been born as made no difference._

_But he'd changed at the words, become suddenly as sharp and uncaring as everyone else._

_He'd shouted and shouted then left her there alone, his child growing in her belly and his words scarred deep in her psyche. _


	5. Regrowth

5. Re-growth.

"He'd told me himself just a week before that he was a run away…that he'd gotten into a silly argument with his dad and simply walked out for fear of making it worse so I knew it wasn't my past that made him run."

"You went after him?"

"I'm afraid so. Yelled and yelled right outside his poor excuse of a house for him to come face me like a man. In the end he called the police and they hauled me in for harassment and I snapped...spiralled into the self destructive pattern that I only hauled myself out of after Henry was born."

"You still love him."

Which is a statement rather than a question and yet still she's nodding, purging away the last of the weight of this from her soul with the simple action.

For a moment silence and then, "So, what's the plan?"

"I've evidence enough to get a warrant which will wake a certain madam mayor and that's perfect because she's going to have a hard, hard, time walking out of this one.

"As to Alayna...I think Dr Hopper should see her again...see if we can't help her without pushing her away from everything she's known."

"In which case I'll make up the guest bed."

There are no words for how thankful she is right now and so she pulls Mary into a brief, brief, hug before snatching up her badge and heading off for the office.

For a long time there has been a wall in her head.

On one side the memories of her life, of papa, the kingdom and the dark, strange, man who owned her, body and soul.

On the other the memories some other life where there had been no kingdom, no kindly papa and the sharp smell of smoke always, always, there.

She knows the wall was not planned, that she was meant to become this other entirely, absorb her insanity and thus become pliable.

A willing pawn the dark game she'd so unwittingly stumbled into while fetching straw.

She thinks, perhaps, she should be angry the fact, that as warrior child she should rally hard against it past the point that the fatigue of such fight sets hard into her bones.

Still the kiss she knows as her salvation had woken something in her and she finds herself only pleased at the supposition.

Finds herself smiling for the strange conformation that he loves her truly, that no matter his words nor his anger, his affection for her was power enough to frighten even the Queen.

She also, at last, has answer for his absence her life the last few weeks before the wall and this other world. For there in the memories that are not her own she can see her papa...no, not that, not for him...her _father _speaking to the Queen, can hear him whispering of deception, of telling the man who will always, always, be hers, that she is dead and gone.

That other life flows as her true, only the situation twisted to the rules this land without magic and so it can be only that they had told him such a fiction also her true life.

That he believes her lost and her sharp, sharp, parting words as dark prophecy.

It means he shall not come to save him and yet as the world about her again begins to move, as she feels the first strains of whatever holds everyone snap, she remembers at last that this is how it should be.

That it is she who was meant to save him.

So she waits, plays at being the person she is meant to be in this world and plans the life she shall live once she is free.

Once there is again free and open air in her lungs and the wide open sky as her horizon.

She will have to make him see her more than illusion or trap, make him see that she loves him truly no matter how much he believes such a thing impossible.

Sometimes she thinks she shall simply kiss him once more, fill him the true, sweet, magic of love and allow it to be her voice, her proof.

Those are thoughts for when she is again the dreamer she had been before he had come into her life. The woman who wanted the world and yet found always excuse to keep it closed out...found always a reason to stay in the safety and familiarity her family home.

More often she thinks of gifting him the one thing she knows he wishes more than she...of finding the son he lost so long ago and bringing them back together so that they could be as a family at last.

For what else other than to find that child would be have built a curse such as the one tight about her?

That it is, in some part, his magic in every loop and swirl of the binding, has never been under any question, she knows it so very well, after all

The other edges are the dark and malice of the Queen, which poses an interesting question that she shall have to put to him once he lets her back in.

How she shall find the boy when she does not know him but for his father's sake is something she does not think on for too long, for it inspires the other, darker, thought.

The thought that he shall never let him back, that she shall have to watch from the sidelines as he lives his life without her.


	6. Reaction

6. Reaction.

Regina is there at the hospital entrance, arms folded and face serious, when she arrives.

Part of her wishes to just kick out at her, to shout and scream because it's their own particular status quo.

Because in somehow doing that she might re-set everything back to the point where it made sense, where her largest concern was staying as much in Henry's life as she was able.

Of course now that she's reached the point where she's oh so close to believing her son's crazy, crazy, theory, there really is no going back.

No choice other than to smile sweet, proffer her warrant and state,

"I've come to search the basement area of this hospital."

Of course Regina's demanding to know why, for understanding of what there could possibly be of interest to a state official in the basement of a hospital and then...

Then Dr Hopper is walking out of the waiting room, his own mouth pulled into a bright smile of victory as he gives over an edited version of the truth.

As he tells Regina that he believes Alayna prisoner under the hospital and, as the Mayor begins weaving stories that will likely prove building blocks whatever story she uses to remove herself the entire matter, Dr Hopper catches her eye and winks.

It is the signal they had agreed on during the early hours of yesterday morning; the signal that means he reached the hospital before Regina and that there has been no time for Alayna to be moved.

That this really is their one and only chance to get one up on Regina.

Eventually they get through the fire escape and down into what proves a murky little corridor full of doorways.

The nurse that led them here in the first place is instantly scrabbling for character, searching for some way to make sure Regina stays out of this and that, in turn, she remains relatively safe.

She's cut shot by Dr Hopper who pulls as much rank as a shrink is able and demands access to Alayna right this very minute.

After which things move a little faster than she can actually keep a handle on and it's only once they're back in the safety of Mary's house that she has time to really look the one at the heart of the entire escapade

Hair wet still for the shower she'd insisted on taking the very moment she'd stepped into free, open, sunlight and body clothed now in a mishmash of things Mary had found at the back of her wardrobe, Alayna French looks a world away from the beauty in the photo.

Which isn't to say that she can see the sharp, sharp, eyes on the other woman and believe her the wild, insane, thing Regina still claims her.

No, it's more that she doesn't fit at all with the woman she's supposed to be...as though she's been thrust into a role last moment without even so much as a single instants preparation.

It's strange and, like so many other little things that've occurred recently, there really does seem one logical way to explain it.

But...

"You scared him, suddenly you were telling him that you'd come from his world and he didn't know what that meant so he pushed. But Baelfire loved you, Miss Swan, enough to need to push rather than risk being hurt again...enough that I know he must love you still."

It's oh so little given how scared she is under it all, given how much she believes that she will never meet their expectations and yet...

For the lifetime that she had known and loved Baelfire in she had known him only ever as Ben...had had to push and push to be allowed the deepest secret his true name.

So that this stranger, this woman who has supposedly spent her life here in Storybrooke in one form or another, should have know way to know it with such ease.

Unless.

Unless Henry was right.

X

She learns swiftly that she is able to shift her sense of the magic tight about them all into the visual.

That with the hours spent alone her cell she is able to train herself to see every string of not only the curse's heart but also the faint edges of the magic it is trapping.

It is a gift she knows as much a product true loves kiss as the wall in her mind and she makes note to ask her beloved how such a thing had happened when all is right and true once more.

It is with these new eyes that she watches as the curse shifts and begins to atrophy a little at the edges.

She builds so many pictures in her mind as to the shape of the one her dearest heart has gifted the strength to spearhead such things, crafts enough a hero in her mind that, when at last she meets Emma Swan, she can not help but feel a little cheated.

She has only to see the woman she is living with, to see the way the magic the curse strains tight as they laugh and smile a little together, to understand what her Rumple has done.

To see that no matter how well he had claimed the role of beast there is still a man at the heart of him. A man who trusted so implicitly the power of true love that he'd trusted his one sure happiness to one born from it.

Once the woman who, one day, will again be Snow White has left and she's had the time to see the shape the magic that sits about Emma, she finds her smile growing ever the wider.

For there is an essence, a tight string of the purest love about her heart that feels so akin her Rumple that she knows it's origin can be only his son.

Still her eyes are far to clever their own good and almost the moment she sees that she sees also the sharpness in Emma's eyes.

Knows that True love has proved as bitter sweet this other as it has for herself.

That Emma is likely as dived from Baelfire as she is from Rumpelstiltskin.

But why?

She has never known the child, had learned his name only by the purest chance and yet she has known a little the man his father had been once upon a time.

Knows that a man such as that would have raised a child pure, gentle and strong enough in heart that he would have believed still in everything even after he had been separated from his father.

That the man that child would have become should have treasured always the rare treasure of true love rather than push it away just as his father had.

Some niggle the very hind edges her awareness has her look again at the tendrils of the curse that wrap, as she knows they must with everyone else, about the saviours mind.

They are still so very fresh, no older than a few weeks at the very most and yet that makes no sense when she knows that, no matter how it seems, the curse has claimed at least two decades their lives.

Unless...

Emma had been brought here to this world before the curse had been cast... had been raised in this land without magic as though it was her own.

The other life in her mind tells her well of how hard life might be without parents, of how much one raised that life might keep the truth their upbringing as much themselves as possible.

She would have told Baelfire, of course, something in the story her initial discovery making him look again at her and see, at last, what he had known true all along.

That she was as much their world as he.

A thousand possibilities would have flown through his mind and suddenly so very out of his depth he would have pushed wildly for fear of being once more hurt.

It is a knowing she shares with Emma and, suddenly, the saviour is looking at her with new eyes.

The eyes of a believer.


	7. Remission

7. Remission.

For a moment her head's screaming agony, as though she's just spent the last twenty eight years crashing for some all important test and it's finally catching up with her. Then it's simply over, the knowing, the believing, as much a part of her as everything else.

It's actually somewhat an anticlimax given everything and she takes a moment to process that feeling, to push it away for some better point in time and then she enquires,

"How did you know about him...about everything?"

"True love gifted me the power to see a little more than is usual, the power also to keep myself despite the curse, though I've no notion as to why or how it did as such." Belle responds, smiling in a sweet apology that is for more than simply that ignorance.

"My believing isn't enough is it?"

Belle shakes her head and folding her hands on her lap tilts her head in clear contemplation of how best to help her understand what must be done next.

It is an undertaking interrupted by Henry bursting his way into the room, eyes bright for the excitement that strains his voice as he states,

"You need true loves kiss!"

It's clearly the right answer if Belle's face is anything to go by which means he's been lurking at Mary's…his grandmother's…door long enough to know that she remembers and more than long enough for Regina to miss him.

It's a thought that has her blood running cold no matter how certain she is that the other woman would never hurt Henry and she's swiftly running through a thousand ways to get him back where he is, for the moment, safer.

Still Henry is very much his usual, stubborn, self and by the time she's settled on just the right strategy he's settled in at Belle's side and stating,

"She kept you hidden because he loves you."

"Yes," She all but breaths the response, her mouth drawn wide a heart wrenching smile that swiftly freezes hard as she adds, "But even that isn't enough...his power is too precious for him to lose, after all."

It's raw and hurting in a way she recognises well, that has her asking, "You think he's holding to it in the thought that it's the only way he'll ever find Baelfire?"

"Yes, if only that to believe otherwise is believe my love ever ill fated."

She sees, suddenly, so very clearly where this is all heading and, blushing hot despite herself, she enquires,

"It's_ my_ kiss that's going to break the curse, isn't it?"

"Yes, Emma, I believe it is."

X

She stares at the poor excuse of house and wonders, yet again, what it means that finding again the man she loves had proved oh so much easier than keeping his young son from exposing his existence the fast, complicated, way.

The part of her that is still broken, jaded, thinks he's stayed simply because no matter how it might look the house is his home. That he thinks the entire affair of their relationship ended with those last hard words in the dinner and the loss of her dignity at the threshold that self same house.

The part of her that she had thought lost that other, the dreamer who had fallen so very in love with Baelfire at little more than first glance and who had woken, at last, from her long, long, sleep, knows he has stayed in hope that she would come back to him.

In the hope of a moment such as this.

Still no matter how much she believed she was still, very much, a child this magic-less world and the thought of such dedication, of someone hoping against hope for _her_ is more than a little daunting.

Has had her stood at the opposite side of the street to his doorway for a good half hour, her heart all but threatening to burst from her chest.

She knows that, at its heart its little more than the irrationality of nervousness, knows even without the knowledge her proud, brave, lineage, that she has long since grown past the point where she should be reduced to such extremes but such a thing.

Yet…

…yet even the thought of taking one single step closer to that doorway has her shaking.

Has her breath oh so heavy her chest and her stomach churning so fiercely she's all but certain she's going to vomit.

After another long minuet she begins to mentally list in her head all the things she's done with her life, all the things she knows she'll go on to achieve.

With each new item her courage grows and, in all but a run, she crosses the divide and knocks hard on the door.

For a moment after Baelfire's face is again there before her she finds herself chasing after his father's likeness.

Then...

Then she's babbling apologies and her lives story at such a rate that they're colliding together into jumbled nothing's.

Still she keeps talking, unable to stop the torrent now it's begun and, smiling the warm smile that had been as their first 'communication' he takes a gentle hold her hands and states,

"You'd best come in."

He makes tea, the hot sweetness easing out a little her nerves and allowing her to at last fall to silence.

"Ok, now how about you start at the beginning?" He's still smiling, still all soft familiar edges and it's more than she'd hoped for, more than she thinks she's even dared dream.

Still it's also oh so familiar and, smiling in kind, she enquires,

"A story for a story?"

So they trade, he telling her of a father who had started with such pure, pure, intentions only to be so very corrupted by power and she telling him of the curse that self same man had crafted in his desperate want to make amends.

Of how that curse had, eventually, been cast by another and how she had been sent from all that she loved, all that loved her in kind, in the hope that, one day, she would be able to set everything to rights.

He reaches for her hands once she is done, whispers again and again how very sorry he is, of how he would take everything back if only he could.

Whispers and whispers until they become only words.

Until she understands that maybe, maybe, he is as much trickster as his father.

Then.

Then he looks her in the eye and tells her that he loves her.

Cups her chin with gentle fingers and pulls her to him.

Kisses her.


	8. Return

8. Return.

After a while simply chatting to Henry of simple, easy, things she asks if he might read a little his book to her. It is, of course, little more than a simple trick to distract the boy and yet he smiles as though she has gifted him some precious thing and picks a tale the thick volume.

As she listens to him spinning tales her lost world she finds herself searching out his father, adding shaky visual proof the hope she has so firmly place that unknown other.

All too quickly the tales become darker and, pushing his book to one side, Henry begins to tell of how the curse had twisted the lives of others.

His smile...his innocence...fades a little as he spins these tales, as he talks of grandparents kept apart a loveless marriage, a mother he was not free to love and a mother who could not love because she had given everything of herself to an empty revenge.

It is a stark, terrible, change and she thinks to give voice the request for yet another change of subject, then...

...then his voice is twisting into something passionate and he's talking of making things better, of fighting back, not with magic or with grand gestures of power but simply with love.

It is precisely what she needs to hear and kissing his temple she thanks him as sincerely as she is able.

Of course as more child than anything else he's blushing sweetly the gesture and with that act he's again simply a sweet little boy.

It is a reversion that has her so pleased that when he asks after the part of her tale not given print she does not hesitate even a moment, simply smiles and bleeds out the last of the pain through her response.

She is weaving the tale of how she had come to be in a dwarf bar offering advice the ill fated Grumpy when she feels it.

Little more than the odd, almost electrical, sensation of a nerve setting itself free and yet she can see well what it means the nature of the curse.

Can see well how the dark, fetid, tendrils she associates with the Queen's magic have withered away into nothing.

"Belle, is everything ok?"

"Yes, it's perfect."

"The curse is broken?"

"Yes."

"But then why are we still here?"

She can not give him an answer, can see only that the curse, the wall in her mind, are faded as though they had never even existed and, after a moments wild panic, she tells him as such.

The surprise on his face tells that he had not expected so honest an answer, that he had thought he might, somehow, sugar coat everything simply because he is child and smiling, she responds,

"It is a braver thing to admit your ignorance than to cover them with pretty lies,"

A responding smile and then he is the very picture of concentration, brows furrowed and fingers straying to connect the edges of the book.

"I think we need to talk to Rumpelstiltskin."

The unexpected sound of his true name has her body shivering tight and her mind filled the faded, broken, images of his eyes; face; mouth.

Still she is again truly herself, again the brave young girl who had given herself over to a supposed beast for the sake of her kingdom and, swallowing deep the nervousness she enquires,

"Might I go alone?"

The same smile that had lit his face as his mother had given over a broken account her time with his father and then,

"He's locked up in one of mum's cells."

With which she's on her feet, kissing him, softly, on the temple once more for the shear effervescent joy she's feeling and then out, out, once more into the bright free air.

There are people milling everywhere, their faces pulled sharp in confusion as their newly released true selves attempt to claw back some semblance of understanding this strange, strange, land.

She wants so badly to stop and help, to offer some council and yet she wishes to be at his side all the stronger. It is selfishness, she knows, and yet for the moment she is too caught up in the moment to feel guilt for the fact.

So she breaks into a run, her body all but flying as she follows the bright trail of his magic to its source.

Until she is but feet from the body curled tight on the tiny excuse of a bed that occupies one of the two jail cells in the Sheriffs office.

He is thinner, the fact emphasised the long, elegant lines of the suit he is wearing and there is a beautifully crafted cane but inches from his side that has seen use enough that she knows him lame in this world.

Still even then, even with his face turned far from her own and perhaps even without her sight, magical or otherwise, she would know him for Rumpelstiltskin.

Would love him still.

Brave still she sounds out the shape of his name, stands perfectly immovable as he turns and, for the first in what seems a lifetime, his eyes are again there upon her own.

They all but burn a path across the shape of her, the pain, the disbelief, sharp at their depths a thing she wishes so desperately to erase. Yet she knows so very well that she can not this time rush, that she must simply temper herself and allow him the first move.

Eventually his stumbles, awkward, to his feet and without so much as conscious though she is there for his hands when they reach out for her through the bars.

He spends far, far, too long simply revealing in the touch of her.

Then...

...oh then he's whispering her name as though it's a sacred thing and pulling her as close as he might with the bars still there between him

With what little voice she has left she tells him that she has found his son, that it is the saviour's love for Baelfire that has, at last, broken the curse.

Tells him what she knows he needs to hear to let go completely and then allows him to kiss her at last.

She feels the bars between them fade into nothing, feels him pull her all the closer and then…

Then there is the spark light of magic all about them and new memories blossoming hard in her mind…

_She remembers growing up with Snow White as beloved friend, sharing both the young princesses' joys and the hard, sharp, pain her mother's passing. _

_Remembers watching the dark presence of her step mother worm her way into everything and waiting, helpless, as the inevitable occurs._

_Remembers the long, hard, year of treating that woman as ally to keep her father's kingdom safe which ends as Snow returns and standing, proud, at her friend's side as she marries her true love and, at last, claims back her kingdom. _

_Remembers meeting him the first time during the evenings festivities and beginning the verbal sparring that would, eventually, bring her to love him so very completely…to take courage and act on that feeling. _

_Remembers how lost he had looked in that moment, how utterly vulnerable and then he is telling her that she is worth more than he, stoking the fire her ire by daring to mention the divide her fortune and his five years of seniority place between them. _

_Remembers calling him a fool of a man and kissing him all the harder..._

The memories slowly wash away her old ones, taking the life that _had_ been hers and replacing it the one that she _should _have lived.

A perfect life.

Still she rallies against it, desperate to hold on everything she's become for adversities sake and then he's kissing her again…whispering for her to let go and let the magic of their love give them their happily ever after at last.

And, because she loves him truly, completely, she does not bite back as her warrior heart is telling her to, but rather pulls the tighter his embrace and gives into his request.


End file.
